Saturday, January 4, 2014

The December 2013 report of the Digital Policy Council shows 123 out 164 countries or three out of four heads of state have now embraced Twitter.

The biggest mover in the Twittersphere was US President Obama. He occupies # 1 spot and gained 16 million followers this past year. This pushed the number of people who follow him north of 40 million.

Starting with the 2008 Presidential Election Obama has always been comfortable with social media but a noticeable upturn in his numbers occurred when the US Government shut down in September 2013. Obama joined other politicians and citizens to tweet his frustrations about the situation.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) made the most spectacular debut onto the Twitter stage. SBY only joined Twitter in 2013 but 4.2 million followers quickly followed him.

The Indonesian leader is a quick leaner.

He strategically took to Twitter to chastise Australia over allegations the Australian Government spied on Indonesian officials.

The Australian Prime Minister comes in at # 26 in the global Twitter rankings, a drop from his # 20 ranking the previous year. Abbott has been tweeting since November 2011 and has 270 000+ followers. The PM is an infrequent tweeter. Recent posts serve up mainly feel good content with little apparent effort to interact with others or converse on issues.

Still our PM is streets ahead of leaders from China, Denmark, Sweden and some Gulf countries who are yet to get on to the micro blogging platform.

While the adoption rate among some world leaders may have slowed, the number of people following political leaders continues to grow. In 2013 83 million people followed a world leader up from 10 million people just three years ago.